They Make Checklists For a Reason...

OKay - what an eventful week...!
Unfortunately, I was not able to spend as much time in the barn as I would have liked...see, I am the HR Manager for an accounting Firm and given the time of year, we have a lot of people working a lot of hours, yours truly included. March 31 is the BIGGEST deadline of the year for us, which equals a lot of last minute changes, people in bad moods and a general air of doom. I would rather eat a broken lightbulb, then have to deal with 3/4 of the people in my office....So much so, I have asked Desirae (Barn Manager, Barn Owner's daughter and someone who is becoming a good friend), to school the Pickle for me tomorrow because I know I am going to be in the office until God knows when...
Lesson last week...was absolutely the BEST lesson I have had with Chester...aside from the damn outside line (7 strides) - which for whatever reason Chester thinks would be better to shove his head into my chest and pull me towards, as opposed to cantering down in good rhythm, going to have to work on that - we were doing bending lines, tight turns, roll backs all at 3 feet and he was incredible...very rideable, attentive, collected and a true gentlemen...I even caught him snorting to himself as we were cantering around as if he were saying 'Yea - bring it'.
Show day - For the life of me, I don't know what prompted me to like horses so much, because if it is one thing I am NOT, it is a morning person...shoot me now. So, the Boss arrives with Kelly and Tiki in tow and away we go 40 minutes down the 401. Tiki was SO HAPPY to see his old pasture mate...it was pretty cute...you could almost see them filling each other in on what has been going on in their lives... (Unfortunately, the area West of us is dealing with Strangles - SCARY - so originally we weren't going to go anywhere, but leave it to Joyce to find a schooling show on the same day but in the opposite direction.) We get there, register and when I am tacking up realize - I forgot my saddle - OMG - of all the rookie mistakes - however, the barn owner was nice enough to lend me one of her's, which actually turned out to be nicer then mine, so it all worked out. Joyce's reaction to the Young Guns as we were tacking them up was 'I can not believe how quiet they are being'. You would have thought by looking at them that they were seasoned campaigners and had been doing this their entire lives as opposed to NEVER before. They both pinned in all of their 'hunter' classes. The jumper course was also great for them. We both had the same rail down (1st fence that you had to approach on a circle), and this was after Joyce told us to ride it a certain way, which we did not...sorry Pickle...my fault.
The BEST part about the day...we noticed as we were warming up, there were 4 or 5 xc fences out in the field...soooo we snuck over after our jumper round to school over them. It was GREAT!! :-) They did tires, logs, and a ditch even...!!! They both did NOT like the ditch at first - holy BREAKS!! So, we both got off and 'walked' them over the ditch a couple times with Joyce yelling 'Make sure they don't jump ON you'...then they both did it like some 4* horse would and happily and quietly cantered around the field...huh..?! I don't get it either, but I am not complaining, considering the day before I could hardly get him to walk past a snow bank without him practicing piaffe....
Humm - just tried to upload some pictures, but it didn't work, so I will try again later on.

Lesson(s) for the day - 1. They make checklists for a reason...USE THEM. 2. When the Boss says for you to ride something a certain way...DO IT.